In pursuit of a secret recipe, Nishma is roped into solving a decade-long mystery, and putting a village’s trauma to rest.
The Festival: Hemmingward is a narrative game about helping bring a war criminal to justice while you are trying to put on a food festival. It is my thesis project for my MFA at the University of Connecticut, and a prototype for a larger game about putting on a food festival in a country that just got out of a civil war.
I began working on this game in earnest in Spring 2024, with pre-production and ancillary work stretching back to December 2022. I wrote the story’s script, modeled the 3D characters, worked on the environment art, and used Unreal Engine 5’s blueprints to program the game. Consulting and editing help was provided by genocide activist and researcher Bekir Hodzic, music and audio help was provided by fellow UConn student Faith Colello, and additional environment assets were modeled by Morgan Taylor.
The current build of the game, and a full list of credits, can be found here: https://cornelius-of-lykia.itch.io/the-festival-hemmingward
As of January 2025, the game is in active development, with a rough copy currently completed, and an alpha version due to be completed May 2025. It will be presented at the MFA exhibit at the William Benton Museum of Art at the University of Connecticut from late March to late April 2025.